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[Valoon]

I am not a

Then are you b?

Whoops, I wanted to post and then I decided to not do it. No idea what happened.

I was about to say "I am not a composer but a sound designer and it's pretty easy to see that there is at least 10 times more composers than there is sound designers for basically the same amount of jobs or even probably less".

[Jasmine]

For me it's almost impossible to rate the quality of game music, compared to the visual design.

Wanna hear the only "song" i ever "composed"? This: http://isleoftune.com/?id=19267

Actually, it is rather easy to compare quality, but it depends on what you are searching for. Compositional quality is, to some point, subjective, but professional quality is usually held to a standard that can be generically gauged.

I mean, rating compositional quality is like saying Beethoven is better than Skrillex. From a listener's stand point, it depends on the person.

Now, if you were to compare:

This

to

This

as far as professional quality, gauging which is professional and which is amateur is a no-brainer.

[rj]

true but christ the first is so fucking boring and bland as fuck that the second is actually more worth listening to

why even bother making music if you're just gonna ape zimmer and maybe add electro bass sweeps and drops like every other fucking composer today

EDIT: mind you i fuckin agree tho. i think that professional quality is 100% basically "can you record + mix well" and everything else is just up to taste

[Jasmine]

true but christ the first is so fucking boring and bland as fuck that the second is actually more worth listening to

why even bother making music if you're just gonna ape zimmer and maybe add electro bass sweeps and drops like every other fucking composer today

EDIT: mind you i fuckin agree tho. i think that professional quality is 100% basically "can you record + mix well" and everything else is just up to taste

That's what sells, though. That guy is making a living writing music. It is... what I would consider the musical staple of television and movies, but the truth is, if you can make it sound like that and move like that, you've got a job.

Most people want to get their foot in the door, composing what may be considered "main stream", and then focus on nabbing a project that allows them to flex their wings. Honestly, they just might make music that caters to their preference on the side, but as far as what keeps them afloat...

Sometimes I wonder if the way to making a living writing music is writing what everyone else wants. That's a story for another thread, though...

[ZackParrish]

That first track sounds like an 8Dio grab bag... basically a ton of sample libraries geared towards sounding like the overly cliche Zimmer sound. Tired of hearing it, and the fact it's a standard these days is an insult to originality.

[Pete301]

Surely the reason that this 'Zimmer' music is copied so much is because his music was/is incredibly good and fits the genre of epic cinematic very well. This causes a lot of people to mimic his work, and certainly a lot of people hiring composers will hear this music and think 'that sounds like Zimmer, he must be good'. Then they get hired and people hear more of that type of music because it gets money.

Before we can begin to see a change of view from the public one of the influential composers will need to start a new trend and break the cycle of Brass+Choir+Strings+OversizedTaikoDrums full volume blasting through my ears.

I heard Schindlers Liszt theme again the other day. That's some fancy ass composing that I'd like to see revived.

p.s. are we reviving this thread to talk about Hans Zimmer-esque composition? I think everything that needs to be said has been for the saturation of composition. Maybe I should lock this?

[Kyle Preston]

I'm surprised to see this thread constantly revived but I do think the Zimmer-esque compositions are relevant to the discussion. And if "composition" is over-saturated, it's relevant and necessary to talk about the type of music you're trying to earn a living with.  If you write for AAA games, studios seem to like that bombastic "epic" (used to love this word, now I HATE it) style. 

And I don't know that anyone in this thread has said Zimmer sucks and we shouldn't listen to him, (I personally really like a lot of his work and have a huge soft spot for composers that started in Rock & Roll), I don't think it's necessary to defend or explain his success based (subjectively) over how "good" his music is.

But yeah, that first track sounds like EVERY. TRAILER. EVER! Put it on Audio Jungle and it'll sell like hot cakes. I think you just have to decide what kind of composer you want to be, and find a way to make it happen.  If you want to write over-the-top trailer music, there is clearly a market for it.

And for the record, I have a hard time believing this potential over-saturation is in any way limited to video game sound designers or composers; everyone who works on a game has to work their ass off to make anything good and yeah, there may be more of us writing music these days, but there's also more artists and more programmers; we as musicians aren't as under-valued as some of us may think.

[MereMonkey]

I'm surprised to see this thread constantly revived

And for the record, I have a hard time believing this potential over-saturation is in any way limited to video game sound designers or composers; everyone who works on a game has to work their ass off to make anything good and yeah, there may be more of us writing music these days, but there's also more artists and more programmers; we as musicians aren't as under-valued as some of us may think.

Couldn't agree more Kyle!

[Valoon]

For me it's almost impossible to rate the quality of game music, compared to the visual design.

Wanna hear the only "song" i ever "composed"? This: http://isleoftune.com/?id=19267

Actually, it is rather easy to compare quality, but it depends on what you are searching for. Compositional quality is, to some point, subjective, but professional quality is usually held to a standard that can be generically gauged.

I mean, rating compositional quality is like saying Beethoven is better than Skrillex. From a listener's stand point, it depends on the person.

Now, if you were to compare:

This

to

This

as far as professional quality, gauging which is professional and which is amateur is a no-brainer.

Do you mean for the sound quality/skill it takes?

Because for the money potential, the first one destroys the second one, no problem. The first one has the trailer feel to it which is huge on the market. It's also way closer to the overall "popular" music of these days, so it's better from a marketing point of view.

The second one is nice but it would be for a very niche kind of games. (And I have no idea why it's listed as metal/rock).

And as such the composer(s) of the first one have 1100 views in 17 days and the second one has 500 views in 7 years which kinda reflects what I just said.

[Jasmine]

Yeah. That's what I meant when referring to professional quality. Shoot, even compositionally, I believe most people would go with the first option.

But, I could do the same thing with two other pieces, and I think the debate would swing in multiple directions.